Em sent me an email yesterday, asking after some details of the first ascent of Wagon Train. That email exchange prompted me to go looking for the pictures. Found them in the 2003 folder! Holy sh#t, a decade has gone by! (feels good to still be climbing, gotta admit)

Anyway, having the pics in hand I thought I'd share something of the wonder and wyldness that is Brutus Of Wyde. Check it.

June 21, 2003, Sonora Pass, Deadman's Creek, 4th Recess.... the Forefathers Wall. Stu showed me this place when I helped him open up Stupendous. Angus and I added Tag Team a few years later. You see it here in this image.

Its a good line and one day, Brutus met the two of us up there. He arrived a bit later and wasn't there when I led ie earlier in the morning. He was a bit wide-eyed looking at me as he cranked the final moves... Dayum Dingus, didn't know you had that in you! Lol :-). The crack splitting that face is Tag Team Direct (10a R), Tag Team itself traverses into that crack at about mid-height, from the corner to the right.

Anyway, Brutus being Brutus he wanted to add a line or three of his own. And Brutus being Brutus his eye quickly settled on this (gulp!):

Oh he had the requisite gear for an over-hanging squeeze chimney.... for sure. And bing bang boom, up he goes, to 'check it out.'

You can see one of the challenges of this route... getting into the constriction is sorts Steck Salathe-like... (sorta)

A nice sequence of moves. Hard to see it here but this thing overhangs pretty good, if you fall? You fall OUT, not down. Scary stuff.

Brutus was my Master, and I learned a lot of the Game of Wyde in places just like this

Here you can really see the 'fall out' nature of the climb.

There goes Angus, seconding the FA.

Can you say STEEP? This isn't exactly along the fall line of Wagon Train but you get the idea.

So the day after Wagon Train ole Brutus and I drove to Road's End for the start of a multi-year adventure.

Damnit Brutus no sitting down on this job!

Dude's got a boat on his back!

Classic Brutus pose

Off we go

Began to fester about those rocks up there. This was the year I found the bummer trail to get in there.

Headed up here for the first time, with bad intent

Broad Dome in the morning

Lump in the throat, excitement too

I've been back many times, this was the only time I saw all the spillways closed like this

A glimpse of the future could make you weep

Here we go!

I've lost count of the times I've been back since, now

The lake was FULL

Its a Loch Ness for sure

I wasn't too sure about this whole inflatable boat thing, in what is essentially a bottomless lake

He bought that boat for this purpose, specifically

It was never easier, subsequently, to get in the water

And then... there we were, with a couple of thousand dollars of metal, in a sinkable boat. It was unnerving to have all our gear, plus us, in that dinky thing.

But as we approached the wall... oh my! Potter, Norteinger, Leversee, and others... had been there, done that. Looking at their lines? The worm was turning HARD

Roofs

Norteinger's splitter (FA interrupted by a falcon's nesting site)

The first gleam in our eyes of Sirens of the Stanislaus

And Bear Island

We studied her for a long time. The Sirens were indeed calling but we did not set foot on stone that day. The Loch Ness nature, the inflatable boat with all that gear in it, the wind driven waves, the remoteness... ? We Fled!

But the line was established in our minds at least. We had our goal

Not too much weeping that day :-)

Back at the dam, I was happy we didn't lose any gear and sink the boat

We stopped on the way out and did a repeat of a route Munge established back when he was a Turkey Tech youngster.

He was, Donini. Always ready to laugh in the face of death and an insatiable appetite for new routing. Plus he had a taste for the esoteric and the weird, a bit of a freak if you must know. Its why we got on so well. He also looked after his partners big time.

Scuffy weren't that the day we met face to face for the first time? You came walking out of the woods like a ghost or something, Brutus was all suspicious... 'who's THAT?' I was all, aw, that's just Scuffy. He's not here to rob us, he's here to wish us well. :-)

Ho, Dingus,
the sequence goes like this:
I met you, Brutus and Em for the first time a few months after Wagon Wheel,
when you first did Midas, Sept or Oct 2003. Mungeclimber was there.

The next time I met Brutus and Em was in June or July 2005, when we did
Big Gulp (at Quickie Mart) and some things at Double Dome. Mungeclimber and
Amyjo were involved. Brutus and Em climbed Mungebagged, while Amyjo and
Mungeclimber and I climbed Food Nouveau.

Next time was when I appeared unexpectedly at the end of the road. This was
to see you off for the FA of Sirens. This would be my 2nd encounter with you,
Summer of 2005.

Feels like a long time, sometime, and like almost nothing, other times.

Cheers

Ed and Em, I wasn't even aware that Wagon Wheel had been climbed more than
once!
Em, how's the ankle?